Brno (Czech Republic), Saturday 21 July: Troy Bayliss (Ducati Xerox) will start tomorrow's ninth round of the World Superbike Championship at the Automotodrom Brno from the front row of the grid after setting third quickest time in Superpole. The 38 year-old Australian was looking good in the first two splits but lost time in the final sector to finish behind Max Biaggi (Suzuki). Noriyuki Haga then did the first ever sub-2 minute lap of the Czech Republic circuit to grab pole for Yamaha. Team-mate Lorenzo Lanzi did his quickest lap of the entire weekend in Superpole to line up on row 2 in seventh place.

"It's pretty important to be on the front row here because last year with the track conditions we really struggled" declared Troy. "I was happy to set the time that I did and was surprised Nori made 59.6 because that's a really good job. No one has ever gone that fast on a Superbike here before. My last split was far from perfect, I ran a little wide in the final corner but it wasn't going to gain me four tenths so I'm happy with that and hopefully we can do a decent job tomorrow. They are going to be two very hard races tomorrow. Honestly there are two choices of tyre: a soft one that everyone will want to use and that's going to be very difficult for the last six laps and then there's the harder tyre where you're going to lose a second a lap right from the start, so I'm sure we're going to see some strange things tomorrow!"

"I made a mistake right in the middle of the first corner on my Superpole lap and for sure I lost some time there. The rest of the lap wasn't bad so I start on the second row, which is OK because it's a row ahead of what we have been doing all weekend" commented Lorenzo. "I feel I've got a good race pace so tomorrow we will try and get a good start and do a good race with the tyres. We've still got a couple of things to try in the warm-up as well. Conditions will for sure be different for tomorrow's races, like last year, but hopefully they will be a bit more in our favour and the temperature will be lower, which should help us".

from Ducati Xerox